


undone

by chrofeather



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Julian is sad and Garak is Garak, M/M, Men Crying, Pre-Episode: s05e16 Doctor Bashir I Presume, References to Depression, Richard Bashir's A+ Parenting, Self-Esteem Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25610164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrofeather/pseuds/chrofeather
Summary: Anyone who knew the truth could never look at him the same.It was a pain that, despite his experience as a doctor, Julian found himself ill-prepared to remedy.[Or, Julian tells Garak the truth.]
Relationships: Julian Bashir & Elim Garak, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 28
Kudos: 194





	undone

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, this is not what I intended to write last night, but this is what came out. I just needed some good ol' vicarious emotional catharsis via Julian and Garak. This is mostly a self-indulgent vent piece, but I was thinking about Julian's secret and how he kept it on the down-low for five seasons before it came out, and the kind of mental and emotional toll that takes on a person. And of course, Garak is there to help. Not explicitly romantic between them, but could be read that way.
> 
> Pretty heavy CW for suicidal ideation, and one very brief but somewhat graphic description of a past suicide attempt, so proceed with caution. I promise this ends well! 
> 
> I'd love to know what you thought!!

It got to Julian sometimes, when he laid alone in bed at night, and the weight of that ugly dark secret pressed down on him like a physical pain. It laid heavy on his chest, breaths coming short and shallow, a knot in his stomach, ribs feeling too tight around his heart and lungs.

He couldn’t sleep. The pressure was too great. It felt like an elephant was standing on his chest, like something inside him was wound so tight it was bound to break if he tried too hard to breathe. He could feel the fear building, the animal terror from the primitive part of his brain, and the knowledge that it was happening only intensified that fear.

Julian lay there in the dark and the quiet, trying to steady his shaky, gasping breaths despite the racing of his heart. _Shut up shut up shut up,_ he kept telling himself in his mind, over and over again. _Quiet they’ll hear you shut up shut up._

The sound of his shaky, rapid breathing was the only thing he could distinguish in the silence of his quarters, and still the panic wrapped its suffocating tendrils around his chest. His parents weren’t here; they were millions of miles away, literally on another planet, and yet Julian was paralyzed with the fear that his father would walk through that door with that angry, disappointed look on his face while his mother looked over his shoulder with her sad eyes.

He didn’t want to disappoint them. Not again. He was trying so hard. He wanted to show them that he had been worth it. That he could be good.

They weren’t here to protect him now. That was what his father would say. Julian had to be good.

He felt his eyes fill with hot tears, his chest tight and aching as he laid there in the dark, body stiff beneath the sheets, hardly daring to move. Julian blinked rapidly to dissipate the tears, clenching his hands into fists so tight his fingernails dug into his palms, trying to distract himself with the pain.

Julian wasn’t that good of a liar. He liked to think he’d gotten better at it, but he still wasn't very good. One day they were going to catch him, going to find out what he was, and then it would all be over.

The stab that went through him was a spike of pure, utter loneliness, and he curled up on his side in bed, gasping out a tiny sob and hating himself for it. He wished he could cry quietly. Silently. Perhaps that way he could pretend it wasn’t happening, pretend the tears sliding down his cheeks were someone else’s, and he could be somewhere far away.

The truth was so heavy in his heart, a terrible lead ball left to fester inside him. Part of him desperately wished he could pull it out and be free of the pain of keeping it hidden, but the pain that came after would be worse. It would be a fresh, bleeding agony, the agony of each and every friend he had turning against him. The agony of losing his career, his medical license, losing everything he had worked so hard for all these years.

The agony of seeing the disappointment in his parents’ eyes all over again. Despite the resentment that seethed and bubbled in his chest like molten lead at the thought of them, the most intimate, personal agony would be knowing that he had failed them all over again. Julian had worked so hard, not only for himself but in the faint, absurd hope that his parents could be proud of him. Proud of _him,_ and not what they had made him into. Perhaps, he thought with twisted reasoning, if he worked hard enough then they could forgive him for being born defective. He had done everything they asked for, even when they wouldn’t tell him what they truly wanted.

Julian had done well. But not too well. He had been punished for both many times over, and finally he had found the tiny niche that was the acceptable in-between. It was an achievement he was proud of, privately.

He couldn’t throw that away, not now. The secret would have to remain there like a sliver under his skin, slowly festering. Over time he imagined the infection would deepen, the surrounding flesh inflamed and unhealing, the pain spreading deeper and slowly driving him mad.

But he could smile, and laugh, and make sure everyone knew he was fine. That was the price to be paid.

The thought made Julian feel like he couldn’t breathe.

He buried his face in his pillow and fought the urge to scream even as it felt like there was no air in his lungs, tears seeping from the corners of his tightly closed eyes.

It was eating him alive. As much as he tried to make himself forget and close his mind to reality, how hard it was to forget that every relationship in his life was conditional. Anyone who knew the truth could never look at him the same.

It was a pain that, despite his experience as a doctor, Julian found himself ill-prepared to remedy.

Sometimes, it felt like all too much to bear. He thought often about death, about what a relief it would be to no longer carry this burden. He fantasized about it sometimes, about how he would do it. He had calculated the precise dosage of potassium chloride it would take to stop his heart, taking into account his… altered physiology, plus the sedatives he would take immediately afterwards to make sure he was in a deep, dreamless sleep by the time his heart failed.

He had tried once before, with a less sophisticated technique. He’d been perhaps fifteen, the terrible secret newly revealed to him less than a year before, and the thought of living with that his entire life had seemed utterly overwhelming. Terrifying. Julian had decided he couldn’t do it.

At fifteen, he’d downed the rest of a half-empty bottle of scotch from his father’s liquor cabinet and broke the bottle in the bathtub. He’d used the shards to carve up his arms nearly to the elbow, hands too sluggish to shake. He still remembered the exhilaration of that moment, as twisted as it sounded, thinking that it would all be over soon.

The feeling hadn’t lasted, of course. His parents had found him less than an hour later, and a trip to a private hospital, plus a hefty bribe to a Tellarite doctor to erase the scars and make no record of it, had ensured that was the end of it. He remembered how angry his father had been, how his mother was inconsolable for days. Julian had been awfully guilty and upset, yes, but not for the reasons his father would have thought.

Next time, Julian had promised himself, he would do it right.

As the years went by, Julian never forgot it. He thought about it often, in fact. It was an option he always kept open, just in case. And he’d considered it several times, weighed and measured his options against that final, blissful peace. But he’d never quite reached the same depth of panic and shame and despair he’d felt that night at fifteen—he’d come close, but not quite, and the thought remained a last resort.

Julian liked to keep his options open.

The tears had dried on his cheeks sometime while he had been lost in the dull ache of unpleasant memories. Sleep seemed unlikely, despite his sudden exhaustion. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut after running ten miles. And yet his brain was still wide awake. Damn it.

The panic had subsided into a dull, exhausted sort of pain, a dread that he could once again shove to the back of his mind with the futile hope that he could forget it for a while. He debated getting drunk, but it was too much of a risk. A loss of control. Julian got rather maudlin when he was drunk, and he didn’t trust himself not to start talking too much once he got to the point of near-stupor.

He decided he couldn’t be here anymore, alone with his own thoughts in this room. Julian stumbled out of bed, his body feeling almost unfamiliar until his joints and muscles started to wake up again. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, just walked out the door in his pajamas and bare feet.

The corridor was deserted, predictably. It was after 0300 the last time Julian glanced at the chronometer, and god only knew how much time had passed since then. Nights like these had a way of feeling very long. The lights were turned down low for the station’s artificial night, and Julian stared at them as he passed beneath, wandering with no particular destination in mind.

Julian wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going, just staring at the lights and the door panels and taking in the uniform featurelessness of it all. The floor beneath his feet was cold, but not in any way that mattered. He could feel it, but it was a distant, insignificant thing, like the chill of the recycled air—they always turned the environmental controls down on delta shift, he remembered distantly. He counted wall panels as he was wandering by, his steps like that of a sleepwalker. He lost count and immediately forgot that he’d done so, and so ended up back at one every dozen steps or so. But he didn’t mind.

Julian wanted his head to be empty for the moment. The static he could feel building in his skull like the minute flicker of the lights was better than thinking about the pain of the secret slivered under his skin, burrowed in his heart.

He didn’t even realize he’d come to a stop and was staring blankly at a door until someone else approached from the right.

Julian didn’t hear the footsteps until the figure was nearly close enough to touch, and the movement of a shadow startled him into taking a step back.

“Doctor? Is there a reason you’re standing outside my quarters at half past 0300?”

Julian startled at the sound of Garak’s voice, feeling his heart jump momentarily. “Uh, n-no, I suppose not,” he said at last, the words feeling clunky on his tongue, but coming up with an excuse seemed beyond his capabilities at the moment. “Sorry.”

Garak was looking at him in that way that Julian knew meant he was trying to discern Julian’s motives. Fleetingly, Julian considered asking Garak what _he_ was doing awake at this hour, but a half-remembered conversation about circadian rhythms reminded him that Cardassians didn’t sleep a full eight hours all at once like humans did. In fact, they rarely slept for more than four or five hours at a time, usually twice per cycle.

Julian felt scrutinized under Garak’s calculating gaze, and he wished not for the first time that he could simply disappear. He ran a hand through his hair, acutely aware of his disheveled appearance. “I, um, ought to be getting back to bed,” he started to say, but Garak’s hand on his shoulder stopped him from turning away.

“It’s quite a walk back to your quarters, Doctor. You’re already here, so why don’t you join me for a cup of tea?”

Julian found that he had no good excuse to duck out of it. Besides, some tea did sound nice, and he could space out on Garak’s couch for a while as the Cardassian worked on his sewing or read a book or whatever he did at this hour.

Julian merely shrugged, and Garak took this as an affirmative, keying open the door to let them both inside.

“I must say, it’s a pleasant surprise to see you, Doctor. I so rarely have company at this hour,” Garak was saying conversationally, filling the silence as Julian took a seat on the couch. It was much warmer in Garak’s quarters, especially compared to the chilly corridor outside, and in only his pajamas, it felt rather nice.

Julian couldn’t really think of anything to say that would sound like a believable excuse for his aimless wandering of the station in his pajamas, so he just sat quietly until Garak handed him a cup of red leaf tea—with a slice of lemon, just the way Julian liked it, even though he knew Garak found the combination garishly exotic.

Julian stared at the slice of lemon and the steam rising from the tea, his throat tight, feeling like he might cry again for some absurd reason. “Thank you,” he managed, taking a sip just for an excuse to hide his face. It scalded his tongue, but it was worth it for the pain to tether him back to the moment.

“I find it’s nice to go for a walk around this time,” Garak continued amiably, taking a seat next to Julian on the couch. “Far fewer people crowding the Promenade, no waiting for the next turbolift, and all the best spots for viewing the wormhole are never taken.”

Julian smiled faintly. At least he could count on Garak to act like nothing was wrong.

Garak was looking at him with those curious blue eyes, and though Julian could never tell exactly what he was thinking, he knew what concern looked like on Garak’s face.

“Is this a new habit of yours, taking a—what do you call it—a midnight stroll, Doctor?” Garak reached out to try and smooth down Julian’s assuredly wild bedhead, and Julian couldn’t help the little flutter in his heart at the casual affection. Garak almost never touched him in public, but when it was just the two of them, he was ever so slightly freer with his affections, and he never failed to make Julian’s day just with a little touch. “I find that I’m far more productive at this time. Though I do miss reading under the Blind Moon at times.”

Julian swallowed, trying not to let his thoughts linger on the feeling of Garak’s broad, scaly hand in his hair. What would he say if he knew that Julian was a monster? Would the word ‘augment’ mean the same to a Cardassian? He didn’t know if genetic engineering was taboo on Cardassia or not; he’d never even dared to bring it up.

“I just… couldn’t sleep, I guess,” Julian offered with a weak smile. “Decided to take a walk.” He knew he wasn’t being a very good conversation partner, but he didn’t have it in him to talk much at the moment, despite his usual propensity to talk endlessly about anything and everything.

Garak looked at Julian, setting his tea aside. “You’re being unusually quiet, Doctor,” he observed. The unspoken question hung between them.

Julian felt his chest tighten again, feeling put on the spot. Of course he couldn’t tell the truth. That was a luxury he’d never had.

Garak of all people would understand that.

Julian took another sip of his tea to stall for time. It was still hot, but less scalding this time. The warmth settled pleasantly in his belly, empty and churning though it was. He stared down at his bare feet. “Garak… do you ever feel like you’ve got no good choices? Like everything you do is a mistake?”

Garak’s orbital ridges went up. “I do believe that was a rhetorical question, but for the sake of your curiosity, the answer is yes.” Garak always spoke crisply and never missed an opportunity for a verbal spar, but this was as gentle as Julian had ever heard from him.

It was enough to make that hollow, gut-punch pain well up in his chest all over again, like floodwaters overflowing the banks of a river. This time, it was like a tidal wave. There was no stopping it, even as Julian felt his throat tighten and his eyes prickle with tears. His hands shook, and he had to set down his teacup to clutch uselessly at his thighs.

He couldn’t even look at Garak as the tears spilled down his cheeks, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood in a vain attempt to stop the tears. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe, knowing he would start sobbing.

Julian felt hot with shame, feeling his tenuous self-control finally slip away. He couldn’t hold his breath forever, and his first breath broke into a sob. The careful wall he’d built up was crumbling away like a child’s tower of blocks under the force of the ocean of pain that was raging inside him, acutely aware of how ridiculous he looked. He folded in on himself, burying his face in his hands even as the tears came hot and fast, breaths shuddering with sobs.

Garak probably thought he was a fool, that he was—

“Julian.” Garak’s voice came gently, a cool hand settling on his shoulder, and Julian couldn’t even look at him.

The calm, gentle timbre of Garak’s voice was just too much, and Julian choked out a wordless sob even as he felt a pair of arms slide around him in a careful embrace that was simultaneously what he longed for and was terrified of.

Julian couldn’t help it; he was weak. He folded into Garak’s embrace, shaking with sobs as he buried his face in the Cardassian’s broad chest. He both loved and hated it, simultaneously clinging to Garak and knowing he should cringe away, feeling utterly undeserving. He was a monster, a _freak_ , a _thing._ If only Garak knew the thing he was touching was dangerous, unnatural… He would hate Julian, too.

“Why?” Julian choked out at last, finally gathering his courage, even as he kept his eyes squeezed shut, his forehead pressed against Garak’s collarbone. Why did he _care?_

Julian didn’t have to say more, and for that he was shamefully, immeasurably grateful. Garak just seemed to know, somehow attuned to Julian in a way that no one else was. “Because it’s you,” was his response, simple and yet elegant, devastating. “Nothing could change that.”

It was like another knife in Julian’s heart. “You don’t know that,” he croaked. He decided to twist it further himself. “You don’t know what I am.” He would hate Julian if he knew, and Julian mourned for it. But he couldn’t take it anymore. It was one lie between them, one lie on top of many, in a relationship built on their mutual distortions of the truth, but Julian couldn’t take it.

Garak’s hand stroked the back of Julian’s head. “I know enough.”

“You don’t understand!” Julian pulled away, feeling anger surge up under the pain and the fear and the loneliness that was eating him alive. He looked at Garak through teary eyes, feeling gutted and hollowed out and _angry_ at the fact of his own existence. “I’m a _monster._ A genetic freak! An… an _augment._ ”

There it was. The words were out, and there was no taking them back. It was terrifying and awful and yet Julian had never felt lighter. Julian braced himself for the disgusted look on Garak’s face, the recoil, the slap. This was it. This was the end. His secret was out, and once everyone knew, there would be nothing left for him. Nothing but that syringe of potassium chloride and the welcome embrace of the accompanying sedatives.

But Garak didn’t pull away. He didn’t even look surprised. In fact, he _smiled._ “I knew there was something special about you the moment we met, Doctor.”

At first Julian wasn’t even sure he’d heard right. He was stiff as a board, staring at Garak through teary eyes. “I… what?”

Garak caressed Julian’s cheek with a fondness that made his heart ache behind his ribs, a thumb wiping away tears from under Julian’s eye. “Of course. It’s only natural that only the best among you humans could keep up with me in discussions of Cardassian literature. I, for one, am sorely grateful for it. Why, I’d be terminally bored otherwise.”

Julian didn’t even know how to respond. Admittedly, he’d never thought he would reveal his secret to anyone willingly. He had no idea how this was supposed to go. His parents had always warned him that his fellow humans would resent him, that they would hate and fear him, always followed by the spectre of Khan Singh. But they were humans. For someone nonhuman, from outside the Federation and its seemingly ubiquitous reach, what did Julian’s genetic status mean?

Julian felt light, almost like he was floating. He had just admitted to being a walking violation of Federation genomics laws, a thing that shouldn’t even exist, and Garak didn’t seem to care at all.

“You could be arrested for not turning me in,” Julian found himself saying.

“I would _love_ to see them try.”

A laugh bubbled up from Julian’s chest, unexpected. He felt close to crying again, though for an entirely different reason now. He leaned against Garak’s chest and settled into that gentle embrace, feeling exhausted and hollowed out, but it was different now. The lead ball had been removed from his heart, the sliver pulled out from under his skin.

It was the most he’d ever felt like himself.


End file.
